Relatively new as I am to Perl, I was wondering:
Before a novice and true newbies start on their journey to Perl Mastery, they must choose the right tools to help them on their journey.
This of course means CPAN, Perl.com,.net,.org, and various other on-line sources. And of course it makes things easier when you have a guide to help you over all those pitfalls.
But there is also the matter of books. Good old finger walking, dust collecting, pinnacles of the paper age. And so there is the question of which books are better.

I've heard good things about the O'Reilly book "Programming Perl" and of course "Perl for Dummies" but was wondering which books the true Perl disciple finds or found most useful in their journey.
In short, show me the way to enlightenment and inner perl
Arigatou gozaimasu

I started learning Perl in February, and after some web browsing chose to buy almost those exact books.I actually used the Win32 version of Learning Perl (Gecko) instead of the Llama. And I got the Perl CD Bookshelf instead of just Nutshell

Learning Perl (for Win32) is amazing, by far one of the best tutorial books I've read. Definitely a must read.

The others have been useful, and I recommend them. I also suggest that you consider getting the CD-ROM version of Nutshell.

In order of usefulness:

Learning Perl: I used this a bunch at first and occasionally for reference.

Perl In A Nutshell (and CD-ROM): I use this almost every day that I write code.

Perl Cookbook: A great sourcebook, can be a huge timesaver

Programming Perl: I use this one to puzzle out arcana that aren't discoverable by other means.

You should also (in addition to books already suggested) check out Mastering Regular Expressions. Regex's are usually perl's most valuable feature to me, and most of the initial perl coding i did was for basic text processing. This book isn't totally perl-centric, but it makes the subject easier to understand.

The CD has the complete texts of Perl in a Nutshell, Programming Perl 2nd Edition, Perl Cookbook, Advanced Perl Programming, Learning Perl and Learning Perl on Win32 Sytems. I love it because I can search for whatever I need from the books anytime (they're nicely formatted in HTML), and there is even an master index of all 6 books. Yum.

Plus, the hardcopy version of Perl in a Nutshell is included, all for only $59.95 </car salesman voice>

Of course, sometimes a hardcopy is nicer, but I really like the online format.

While the Camel Critiques are interesting, they seem a bit dated. It reviews Camel II, but Camel III is out. Many of the books it reviews teach Perl4, yet Perl5 has been out for years and Perl5.6 is different enough that a new Camel had to be written for it. It doesn't mention Conway's book, yet many have rated it as highly as any of the others listed, etc.

At work we use Programming Perl and the Perl Cookbook. The
cookbook has loads of good examples. Especially the sections
on arrays and hashes will get you started quickly. Programming
Perl is good to get all the details and the ideas behind
the language. What also helped a lot are the The Perl FAQ/
Man pages... especially if you have a program that allows
you to browse them easily (TkMan for instance).

I know that a lot of people swear by the O'Reilly books, and I like them too, but I also really liked "Elements of Programming with Perl". It's really easy to read, and there are exercises for each chapter.

It's a really good book. It teaches programming using
Perl as its language of choice. The drawback is that once
you get through it, it's not much of a reference. It is most certainly
geared for the beginner programmer, although, I have to admit, it has
some nuggets in there for an old miner, too. I think of all
the books I've bought on Perl (And I think I should own a bit of O'reilly)
So far the book I've enjoyed the most has been Object Oriented Perl. It's
not really a beginner's book though. The Programming Perl Book is more of
a reference manual than a tutorial. For an introduction to the language,
Elements of Programming is probably the best of the beginners books I've looked at.
(I won't look at the dummies books. I find their titles insulting... absolutely a
marketing ploy).

Programming Perl is a definite improvement over Learning Perl - Learning Perl went a little too fast for me.

Perl Cookbook definitely cleared up lingering confusion.

Other suggestions:
MacPerl: Power and Ease, V. Brown and C. Nandor
Learning Perl on Win 32 Systems, R. Schwartz, E. Olson, T. ChristiansenThe Perl Journal - My subscription to this is repaid many times over.
Getting and looking at other folk's code, no matter how bad - its invaluable.
The dummies books are will'o the wisps on the path to enlightenment.

Learning Perl is great while your learning specially the first chapter. Programming Perl
isn't as good for reading cover to cover, but if you want to look up
just what something is doing. there ya go.
Perl Cookbook is the most useful book I've found so far, everytime you
say hey, how do I do this? ::flips through pages:: OH! That's how I do that
But you need some understanding of Perl in general first.
Of course the best way to learn is to make programs, make programs
that you don't know exactly how to do and you can learn alot.

If systems admin is your flavour of Frutopia, then take a look at "Perl for System Administration" from O'Reilly Press (the sea otter book :). It was just published in July 2000, but I wish I had it earlier.

But if you're looking for a general language reference, then the Camel Book (Programming Perl) is probably your best choice. I wish it were a bit more in-depth on some topics (like IPC), but then it would wind up really really huge. In any case, my well-thumbed, sticky-note-annotated copy never leaves my arm's-reach at work -- it's really worth your money.

Without a doubt, the first book on your road to enlightenment is 'Learning Perl' by Scwartz and Christiansen (O'Reilly). As a perl novice I've found it to be inspirational and practical. The next book I bought was the 'Perl Cookbook' by Christiansen adn Torkington (O'Reilly), which contains many many useful programs. Have fun and be wise !

Slightly off-topic perhaps, but being an utter PerlNewbie myself, I found that Online tutorials were an effective way to grok the basics of Perl. I'm reading the gecko book (which is great) now, but I'm really glad that I worked through Robert's Perl Tutorial first. The thing about Online tutorials is that you're already at your computer, so you can work through the examples as you go. A slightly unwieldy process if you're trying to balance a laptop and a book in the same lap.

I think the previous posts give a good run down on the O'Rielly books, but there are 2 books not mentioned that you may want to consider.

Even though you may not be interested in Object Oriented perl, I didn't realize how much 'essential perl' I was lacking until I went through Damien Conways Object Oriented perl. (Published by Manning IBSN 1-884777-79-1). If you can't afford to add it to your collection I still think snagging the book at a Barnes and Nobles and reading the second chapter would be very enlightenning for a beginner. Not that I'd ever do such a thing :)

The other book that I'm finding is becomming the most dog eared and quickest reference book is Perl Core Language (Little Black Book Series) from Corolis Press. (ISBN 1-57610-426-5). There's nothing in it that's not covered by the O'Rielly books but it's better organized for those 'quick refreshers' IMHO.

I have found that the book Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days
is quite useful, as far as teaching just the essential basics
of the language. From there, you would need other books, and
at that point, I would recommend the Camel book.

Went to join the gridlock to see it
Held an eclipse party
Watched a live feed
I cn"t see tge kwubosd to amswr thus
I tried to see it, but 8000 miles of rock got in the way
What eclipse?
Wanted to see it, but they wouldn't reschedule it
Read the book instead